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Time seemed to stand still for the briefest of moments as Philip lowered his weapon.
Leo jumped to safety, landing easily on his four paws as the pirate fell, perhaps mortally wounded. Philip briefly wondered if charges could be brought against him for killing a man to protect a cat.
He felt not a trace of guilt. He’d been unable to save his twin, who’d died alone on a cobbled street in another part of London, but at least, he’d saved Robert’s cat.
Then his gaze took in Beryl’s disheveled but otherwise unhurt appearance. She’d pulled a wadded gag from her mouth, which she now dropped to her feet where Leo was already circling and getting under her skirts. Obviously, it had been the only way to keep her quiet in the hidey-hole.
Philip didn’t give a damn the earl would see what happened next. In quick steps, he tore Beryl from her cousin’s grasp and gathered her into his arms.
Holding her tightly, feeling her heart beating, strong and brisk, against his chest, Philip found his eyes filling with tears and his throat closing with emotion. Only then did he acknowledge the terror he’d been harboring.
And at that moment, the anguish and guilt he’d felt for the past four years, every time he’d considered how Robert had died, lifted.
What’s more, Robert’s cat had clearly chosen Beryl for him, and then helped to save her, and in Philip’s gut, he believed it was his twin’s doing.
Letting her go only so he could take her face in his hands, he kissed her. He thought he would never stop kissing her, until he heard the earl cough.
Ignoring it the first few times, at last, Philip lifted his head, staring deeply into the tawny eyes of his beloved.
Beryl finally spoke. “Water!”
***
IN HER COUSIN’S COACH, Beryl sat next to her father, his arm draped around her shoulders, holding her close against his side. She knew she would have to wait until she was home for a drink, since it was only just dawn, and no inn or pub was open.
If only they were at their home in Bedfordshire with the clear waters of the Great Ouse, or even in China where she’d seen rivers and streams of the purest water, she would stop and dunk her head right in. Instead, they rode along beside the filthy Thames, a teasing waterway from which no sane person in London would ever drink, if he or she could help it.
On her other side was Leo, curled in a tight ball, with the curve of his back against her leg. Her little savior!
Across from her, two pairs of eyes stared back, her cousin’s and the captain’s. The captain who’d already taken her in his arms and kissed her.
She wished she could have brushed her teeth first.
No one seemed eager to talk, everyone perhaps too exhausted.
She could only hope this was her last kidnapping. There was absolutely nothing enjoyable about the experience at all. Except being saved, and even that was losing its luster.
It was Philip who broke the silence, and it wasn’t to speak with her. He addressed her father.
“After we drop your daughter home, I intend to head straight to my ship.”
Whatever could he mean?
“Are you leaving, Captain?” she ventured to ask.
“No. But there is business to finish to keep you safe.”
“As her majesty’s representative,” her father said, “I believe I should go with you to discuss terms.”
Her cousin frowned. “What terms?” Cambrey asked.
“While you were locating Beryl,” her father squeezed her shoulder, “Captain Carruthers and I were discussing ways to keep the pirates from trying to take her again. Namely, turning them against...,” trailing off, he looked at Philip.
“Chui-A-poo,” the captain supplied the name.
“If we can get them to take money and leave, they can say she is dead. I don’t really care,” Lord Angsley said, “as long as they leave her alone. If they won’t agree to help capture Chui-A-poo and turn their leader over to the British in Stanley, then I will ask our queen to capture him or kill him.”
“Father!” she said, feeling shocked at his brutality. She’d already seen two dead men in the room through which the pirate had dragged her, and probably, that brute now lay dead in the alley, too.
To think, Leo had wrestled with a pirate. She stroked the cat’s head, feeling comforted.
“Lord Angsley is right,” Philip said. “Either the queen demands the Qing officials get involved and capture Chui, which is unlikely, or his men do it, which might happen if we pay them enough. Or we’ll have to send someone to kill him.”
“Probably you,” her cousin quipped, and Beryl rested her head back against the leather seat.
Would Philip really go halfway around the world again, on a mission to assassinate a man who had an entire pirate fleet at his disposal?
“I don’t like that idea,” she said quietly.
No one said anything to that.
Then her father added, “There may already be a return response from the foreign affairs secretary, though unlikely at this hour.”
“I’ll go, too,” her cousin offered.
They all spoke at once, until Cambrey interrupted, “I meant to the captain’s ship to meet with the pirates, not to China. Though my wife would strangle me if she knew the adventures I’d already been on tonight.”
Then she watched Philip draw something out of his pocket. Holding it out toward her, he dangled her green beryl necklace.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, letting him place it in her hands. It nearly brought her to tears. “After all this time.”
“The pirate leader had it,” he said quietly.
“Thank you, Captain.” She clasped it to her chest, and it brought back memories of the Orient, both bad and exceedingly good.
Staring at him, holding his dark-eyed gaze, she said, “I far prefer my simple necklace to the glittering jewels of the duchess.”
Her cousin laughed a tad cynically, but the captain nodded, perhaps in agreement.
And then they were home, and Beryl found herself quickly enveloped in her mother’s arms.
A moment later, she saw Lord Wharton. He stood in the open parlor door, looking relieved to see her. It occurred to her a life with him meant no more danger, no more rice sacks over her head. No more dead men.
Thus, when Arthur strode toward her, thanking her father for returning her safely, she allowed him to publicly take her into his arms. Not exactly as the captain had. There was no ardent kiss in front of watchful eyes.
Further, she let him escort her into the parlor and sit beside her on the couch, while he ordered a maid to quickly bring the water she asked for. She expected the other men would follow.
Soon, after drinking it, and then also a glass of her father’s brandy, which Arthur pressed into her hand, Beryl realized her cousin and the captain and even her father had all departed without saying goodbye.
Even more belatedly, she wondered what Philip had thought of seeing her fiancé, who’d been comforting and caring — like a nanny, not like a lover.
Reassuring Arthur of her well-being, Beryl at last bid him good day, with the promise of seeing him again soon.
Then, she went upstairs to sink into the hot bath which her maid, who’d been roused early from sleep, drew for her. By the time her hair was washed, too, it was truly dawn, and Beryl was wide awake.
Later, she knew she would probably sleep like the dead, but at that moment, with all the men whom she loved meeting with dangerous pirates, she could only sit with her mother in the parlor and wait.
Rounding the wing chair, she jumped, noticing for the first time that Leo had stayed behind with her and was even then curled up asleep on the blue damask cushion. The shocking realization he was not by his owner’s side, looking after the captain, set her heart beating fast. She could only hope the cat knew something she didn’t — that he would return uninjured.
***
PHILIP HAD BEEN PREPARED to hand over the necklace if Beryl’s life had depended on it. Now, he wanted Chui’s pirates to leave England with a hefty bounty in the hold of their ship and a promise they would dispose of their leader.
And he wanted to forget having seen Beryl wrapped in the arms of her suitable viscount who loved her and whom — Philip assumed — she loved in return.
It was going to take a lot of gin to erase the memory of that reunion.
The Earl of Cambrey thought they should take the direct approach, and simply sit on the deck of the Robert and wait. After all, if the pirates even showed up, they already knew their captive had been taken from them and they had nothing to bargain with or for.
Moreover, they were down three men, and Lord Angsley had sent the constable and his police force to remove those bodies.
Philip wondered if they ought to track the rest of Chui’s men to their junk at the Limehouse docks rather than let them come on board his ship. In the end, however, agreeing with the earl’s assessment, he perched on the same hatch where Beryl had once sat and drunk tea.
Waiting with his new “crew,” he kept his revolver on his lap.
All of his old hands had dispersed to their homes, still awaiting payment, which Philip now hoped to have for them within days. And the Robert was being prepared for drydock, where she would be made entirely seaworthy once again. For now, she floated gently in the early morning light, tethered in a berth at St. Katharine Docks.
After a few moments, the earl said, “I can see how this is an appealing life.”
Philip raised an eyebrow. “Having been aboard for all of ten minutes,” he quipped.
All three men laughed.
“Are you going out again soon?” This from Lord Angsley, and Philip couldn’t help wondering if the man wanted him gone. Of course, it had been the earl who’d seen him kissing Beryl, not her father, but still, the older gentleman might have an idea.
Then again, maybe not. Maybe they were all simply making polite conversation until this dreadful affair was truly over.
“I have no plans,” Philip confessed, wishing he didn’t sound shiftless. “My father has a successful wool business, and I might work with him.”
“And give up your ship?” Cambrey asked. “I cannot imagine there are a lot of sheep on ships.”
No, Philip thought. Only cats. And where was his loyal moggy? It hadn’t escaped his notice that Leo remained behind in the Angsleys’ home. Perhaps the cat had chosen a new owner.
Thinking of Beryl being so brave after all she’d gone through, Philip conceded Leo couldn’t have chosen better. And maybe he would bite Lord Wharton — somewhere extremely painful.
“My family’s sheep flock and our wool business are in Dumfries,” he told the others, “but I confess I prefer our home in Cornwall.”
“Ah,” the earl mused, “the most pleasant seaside in England.”
“Truly, it is,” Philip agreed and realized he was happier simply thinking about the small village of Newquay, on the northern Cornish peninsula, overlooking the Bristol Channel.
“The GWR,” Lord Angsley mused.
“I beg your pardon?” Philip asked.
“The Great Western Railway,” Beryl’s father clarified. “It will open up the area, so visitors can come visit your beautiful beaches and take in some healthy sea air.”
“I think we already have a Cornwall Railway being built, my lord, though it’s on the other side of the peninsula from where my home is.”
Lord Angsley shrugged. “I think the GWR will swallow it up in the end. The queen will need a man there who knows what’s what to deal with these railway pirates.”
“I see.” Did he though? Was Angsley offering to help him get a position overseeing rail development in Cornwall?
Before he could ask more, Chui’s men arrived.
Perhaps it was having the able-bodied assistance of the earl and his uncle, but Philip could hardly muster an ounce of fear. Beryl was safe, and the necklace was in his possession again.
“Ahoy,” Philip welcomed them, standing as if they were honored guests. There were only two of them, in fact, and so it appeared from the outset as if they knew the jig was up.
After sending skittering glances to each of the men on deck, the pirates bowed low. Philip did the same in return. As he’d discussed with Cambrey and Angsley beforehand, they were to treat these men as equals and with respect in hopes they could be convinced to betray their leader.
“Parley,” said one, and Philip nearly laughed at the serious and rather mistaken use of the English pirate term, as if they were in the midst of a battle, with one ship about to be sunk.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Captain?” he asked.
The man shook his head and gestured to the one beside him. So, the man who spoke was the translator for the pirate captain. Hopefully, the plan was understandable in very few words.
“You have lost both jewels,” Philip began. “The necklace and the woman.”
The translator spoke quickly to the captain who looked ill.
“This will mean your death when you again meet Chui-A-poo.” Philip waited as words passed between the pirates.
By their expressions, he thought they might end their own lives rather than face Chui.
“Yet it can mean a new life instead.” That got their attention.
As simply as he could, he explained the proposal he and Lord Angsley had come up with to keep Beryl safe — capture the pirate leader and turn him over to the British in Stanley. They would, in turn, give him to the Qing government. There was already a bounty on Chui’s head. The pirates would get that, but as incentive, Angsley would give them payment before they even left Britain.
Within a few minutes, the parley was over and the pirates were leaving, certainly happier than when they’d arrived. All they had to do was wait for Angsley to send payment to Limehouse dock, and then they would leave.
Whether it worked or not wouldn’t be known for many months.
“It’s been a long night,” the Earl of Cambrey said. “I, for one, have a wife to get back to.”
“As do I,” said his uncle.
And just like that, their alliance of necessity was broken, and the titled lords vanished into the sunlight, back to their homes in the most elite and expensive sections of London.
Philip didn’t even have a cat anymore.
Nevertheless, bone-deep weary, he went home to his parent’s townhouse, a copy of the layout of those in Mayfair simply with a humbler address and fewer floors. After telling his curious siblings about his evening’s adventures, he slept longer than he had in months.
The next day, he finally showed his face at Buckingham Palace to present the necklace. He received far more than his agreed-upon reward. Because of Lord Angsley’s letter regarding the rescue of his daughter, not to mention the return of the jewels, Philip would be receiving a knighthood.
He couldn’t wait to write to Rufus.
Just try to mock me now, Philip thought, truly hoping his good friend would return soon from Scotland. He missed the camaraderie of his likeminded first mate. Those who frequented gentleman’s clubs simply would not understand the spirit of the sea which took hold of a man. Once called to it, it was hard to resist, and even more difficult to consider remaining landlocked the rest of one’s life. Certainly not as a railway employee!
Whatever else he did, Philip tried to keep his thoughts from Beryl.
That proved harder to do when a day later, she showed up at his doorstep accompanied by her maid and Leo.